


Beginnings, Quiet Strength

by robinsword



Series: Blue's BruceWeek2019 Contributions [5]
Category: The Incredible Hulk (Comics), The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Banner-centric, Canon Backstory, Gen, POV Jennifer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 05:45:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18204320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinsword/pseuds/robinsword
Summary: Bruce Banner would insist that Hulk is his only strength, that he himself is weak and unimportant in the grand scheme of things.Jennifer Walter's would disagree.---Written for Bruce Week 2019 - Day 5: Beginnings / Quiet Strength





	Beginnings, Quiet Strength

**Author's Note:**

> I really wish I could have done something cool for this because this is a REALLY good prompt but I had no time to write today. Take this instead.
> 
> Trigger Warning for a very small, canonical death mention.

In most of the stories surrounding the origins of today’s heroes, it is said that their power comes from themselves. Steve Rogers was good before he took the serum. Thor can protect the cosmos without his hammer.

And Bruce Banner?

Well, if you were to ask him, he would insist himself weak, unimportant in the grand scheme of things without his ability to become the Hulk.

Jennifer Walters would disagree.

While she may have only been a child herself at the time, she remembers the days following Brian Banner’s arrest. She remembers her cousin, Bruce, who she’d been _so_ excited to meet at the time.  Finally! She had someone to play with!

But Bruce had been silent when Jen had offered him a candy. He hadn’t said a word when she’d offered to play eye spy on the journey home. There had been a slouch to his shoulders and a hollowness to his eyes that told of a suffering beyond her comprehension, although again she was too young to take much note of such things anyway.

All she knew is that he would not speak. At least not about most things. When he was given something he still said thank you. And when he was asked a question he always answered shortly in ‘yes’s and ‘no’s. But other than that neither Jen, nor her mother, could get a word out of him.

Aside for her own experience with Bruce, she has also heard - throughout many years of compiling a case for Bruce, should he ever need it - of witness testaments recounting the day of her aunt’s horrific death.

No one had seen the killing blow. What they _had_ seen... was Bruce.

Inconsolable, he’d battered at his father’s legs in a blinded rage, which was thought at the time to be nothing more than senseless grief. At first, Jen found it difficult to picture the quiet, young Bruce that she’d known behaving in such a way. Now she thinks she can imagine; whenever Hulk smashes through a wall or rams into an enemy, she can picture that small child, raging against a monster disguised as a man.

And, while Bruce isn’t silent any more, she knows he still suffers. Because Bruce gets to constantly relive that same blind rage, born from the worst day of his life, as he goes about saving the world. She wonders if the Hulk even remembers Brian Banner or if he just feels inexplicably filled with rage each time he makes an appearance. Hulk’s eyes are wide and innocent. They do not hold the shadows the same way Bruce’s do.

So Bruce Banner may not be able to lift a building or bend steel beams but, even with all his flaws - pride and jealousy amongst other - he has his own quiet strength that even the Hulk cannot match.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on [tumblr](https://asgardianbruce.tumblr.com/)


End file.
